From Universe Today: One of the great outstanding questions in science is known as the “theory of everything”. What underlying laws of physics explain the forces we see in nature? Are gravity and electromagnetism the same force? One popular theory is known as string theory, and proposes that everything in the Universe is made up of tiny, vibrating strings. String theory’s mathematics work best when you invoke extra dimensions, beyond the 3 (plus time) that we can detect. Mathematicians propose... Read more

A column by David Brooks the other day intrigued me when he wrote about students he taught at Duke University last fall, calling them “Children of Polarization”: Today’s college students, remember, were born around 1987. They were 2 or 3 when the Berlin Wall fell. They have come into political consciousness amid impeachment, jihad, polarization and Iraq. Many of them seem to have reacted to these hothouse clashes not by becoming embroiled in the zealotry but by quietly drifting away... Read more

In the year or so that I’ve offered the Skeptics Challenge, Paul is just the second person to participate. He sent me his birth date and time and I sent him a short reading which he has reproduced on his site here. He conducted a “scientific” experiment where he took the two most general statements that were made in the reading and conducted a poll to see how many people these statements applied to. The statements were these: “You have... Read more

Diana shares her experience of Comet McNaught: My first sighting of comet McNaught was with a group of people, all gazing expectantly into the darkening twilight, and it was a little girl who caught first glimpse. And as our eyes focused on the fuzzy bit of brightness, and its awe-inspiring tail…that same little girl squealed with delight, ‘it’s red! it’s red!’ Some of the adults shook their heads thinking this was an over-active imagination, but I recalled looking through a... Read more

I have to admit I was skeptical when astrologers predicted that the opposition of Saturn and Neptune would bring with it a deadly flu pandemic. The planets rarely act as they are expected to perform, and this was too easy a connection to make. Phil Brown looked past the obvious when he wrote back in February: While many claim that the Saturn-Neptune opposition is “it,” this is only part of the developing picture. I believe that mundane Saturn-Neptune configurations can... Read more

After four days of wrangling with the web hosts who had no idea why I couldn’t upload to my site, the February skywatch article is finally posted!! I’m now including a comprehensive list of the major planetary aspects and events as well. Here’s an excerpt for this week: The major aspects for February are the first phase of the conflict between Jupiter and Uranus in the square which occurred in January but will remain in effect through the end of... Read more

For the past year or so I have been followed by hawks. A hawk will fly right in front of me when I’m sitting on the porch, one will circle my car out on the highway. Often as I’m driving a hawk will swoop in front of me while I’m driving, causing me to watch its descent and path through the woods. Two days ago a hawk flew right over my car and landed on the side of the road... Read more